


Looking Through A Window (Saw You)

by Krasimer



Series: Growing Up (So Much Harder Than The Movies) [3]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, But Stan survived it, Eddie Lives, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Grown up versions of people, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kissing It Better, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, One Big Happy Family, Sad Richie Tozier, Soft Richie Tozier, they survived!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 06:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13141236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak had been running and hiding for a long time.He had been running from his mother’s fears, hiding behind the medicine and the doctor’s visits. He had been running from his own fears, scared of diseases because of what his mother had told him. From those, he hid inside what had started out as a cocoon of health and safety practices that had practically turned into a coffin.(His mother, he remembers, had once gotten the words, ‘Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy’ thrown at her. She had screamed at the person who had mentioned it until they had left.)(She had tried to keep Eddie in her house until she had died.)





	Looking Through A Window (Saw You)

Eddie Kaspbrak had been running and hiding for a long time.

He had been running from his mother’s fears, hiding behind the medicine and the doctor’s visits. He had been running from his own fears, scared of diseases because of what his mother had told him. From those, he hid inside what had started out as a cocoon of health and safety practices that had practically turned into a coffin.

(His mother, he remembers, had once gotten the words, ‘Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy’ thrown at her. She had screamed at the person who had mentioned it until they had left.)

(She had tried to keep Eddie in her house until she had died.)

(The women Eddie had dated briefly, never slept with, had gotten engaged to, had been just like his mother. The spine-prickle of warning had been enough for him to call it off. He was not going to be dragged back into his mother’s coffin again.)

Running is awfully hard to do when you wake up in a hospital bed, though. The almost nose-burning scent of antiseptics, of medicine and chemically-driven healing only ever made him think of his childhood and how much of it he had lost to his mother’s control. Eddie shook his head a little, trying to get himself to think clearer.

He must have been _really_ out of it to be thinking of his childhood again.

“Hey,” came a voice from his right. He knew that voice. “Hey, Eds,” a warm touch to his right arm drew his attention to the side of his bed. “Oh, there he is. Those big, beautiful eyes,” Richie’s shit-eating grin was almost enough motivation for Eddie to drag his slow and heavy body into a movement to smack the other man on the shoulder. “Shit, man,” Richie shook his head. “You _scared_ me.”

Eddie blinked and it seemed to take an eternity.

“Hey, don’t try and talk,” Richie shook his head again and this time, Eddie could see the dark circles under his eyes. The bandage on his forehead, the one on his jaw. “You lost a shit-ton of blood, you’re on some pretty heavy medication. Painkillers too, the good stuff.” His grin seemed a lot more fragile, now that Eddie was actually looking. “Going to have to go to physical therapy, too. Eds,” his voice cracked a little and he leaned back in his chair, covering his face. “ _Eds._ ”

Things were starting to fall back into place in his head.

The sewers, It, the noises of the fight down the long, stone tunnels. The pain bad enough to make him black out, no matter how much he tried to stay awake to stare at Richie for what he had thought would be the last time. The damn monster had eaten his fucking arm.

Seemed like the only possible escalation from what had happened when they were kids.

“I thought you were dead,” Richie hissed the words out like they hurt him to say. Like if he said them any louder, they would come true. “I held onto you as you passed out and I felt your heartbeat getting slow and I – I couldn’t leave you there. Put a tourniquet on your arm, did the best I could. Could still remember when you ranted about that, once. Squeaky-shrieky little voice going off about how to do life-saving things.”

His clothing was rumpled, like he had been wearing it for a few days. At least he was not still wearing the outfit he’d had on while in the sewers.

“Been about three days, by the way,” Richie answered a question Eddie had been trying to figure out how to say. “Mike is down in a recovery room, Bill and the others are in the waiting room. Stan’s here, too. Last second miracle, apparently – his wife bound his wrists tightly enough to give the ambulance enough time to retrieve his ass.”

Eddie nodded a little.

“You’re missing an arm,” Richie swallowed, leaning forward just enough to see the empty sleeve on Eddie’s left. “Don’t care though, at least you’re still here.” His hands came up and tangled in the blanket that was sort of dangling off the hospital bed. “Not allowed to go anywhere else, okay?”

For a moment, Eddie could see the version of Richie that had climbed up onto Eddie’s roof and confessed, tear-stained and shuddering with sobs he did not want to let out, that he didn’t want to leave Derry. His parents were splitting up and he didn’t want to go with either of them and he didn’t want to leave Derry and he _didn’t want to leave you, Eds_ was all the warning that Eddie had gotten before Richie had leaned in across the windowsill and kissed him sloppily. All teeth and uncoordinated movements.

“What am I going to do with you?” Eddie felt exhausted, still. Felt like he was falling apart and like things were never going to be the same –

But maybe that was okay.

“Once there was this really dumb kid,” Richie grinned at Eddie. “Who didn’t know what the fuck he was doing with his life.”

“Hey!”

“His name,” Richie’s grin was the same shit-eating one he’d had as a kid. “Was not Eddie Kaspbrak. The shit-for-brains he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing was actually the _very handsome and excellent_ Richie Tozier. See, he fell in love a really long time ago. Part of why he’d never wanted to leave was because of that.”

“Richie,” Eddie said his name, then hurried on when Richie stepped back a little, suddenly looking afraid. “Get your ass down here and kiss me.”

Richie laughed.

Eddie did end up getting that kiss from him, and many more besides.

 

~

 

Stan didn’t look as rough as he once had, these days.

Eddie wanted to let out a cheer whenever he remembered that. Stan had tried to kill himself, had let the darkest parts of their memories nearly destroy him. It was only because of some quick thinking and some fantastic emergency response times that he was still alive.

But Stan, every time Eddie looked at him now, seemed more relaxed than Eddie could ever remember him being.

It might have had something to do with Mike’s arm around his waist, the faint gleam of matching silver rings on their left hands. Or maybe it was living in a house surrounded by research and books and solar system themed things. The ceilings painted with constellations that Eddie could never remember the names of, the walls painted in a gradient of colors to make the rooms seem bigger than they were. Light blue fading into dark fading into space-black with stars painted on that actually glowed at night.

Once they had gotten things settled, after the final battle against It, Mike had carefully pulled Stan into his life.

This was the house they had designed together.

Everything about it spoke of peace and calm and quiet, of safety and warmth and happiness. Mike and Stan invited the entire group in every few days – They all lived close by, no matter what, but every other day or so was spent having dinner together or going out somewhere as a group.

With Ben and Bev’s daughter on the way, the entire group was planning on making sure the little girl would never fall victim to anything like the monster that had tried to destroy them.

Eddie felt the arms around his waist shift a little as Richie turned from his conversation with Bill and settled his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. “I can hear you thinking, Eds,” Richie muttered almost sleepily. “Ain’t life grand, ain’t life great,” he pressed his nose into Eddie’s neck. His arms tightened around Eddie’s waist.

His mother’s ghost was gone.

Closing his eyes and leaning back into his fiancé, Eddie laughed. “You’re a dork,” he muttered.

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way,” Richie shot back.

Of course he wouldn’t, Eddie thought. Any other way would make him someone else entirely. Would make him not be the same man who had been there when Eddie had woken up, the one who had put a tourniquet on his arm and gone off to save the world. The same joker he had fallen in love with when he was twelve.

Everything was exactly where it needed to be.

Eddie Kaspbrak was _happy._

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I've returned to this series because I missed it. Have some more.


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